


before the coming dawn

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Older Characters, Sharing a Bed, dark timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 18:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4315149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Come to bed," Erik says.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	before the coming dawn

“Come to bed,” Erik says, setting one hand upon Charles’s shoulder.

“Go on without me,” Charles murmurs, barely paying attention. He’s focused too intently on Cerebro to spare much notice. This modified miniature version, though still powerful, doesn’t compare to the version they had to leave behind when they fled the school. 

Still, it’s something, a tool they still hold in this battle—one of the few. And Charles is the only one who can wield it. 

He adds, “Just a little longer.”

“You said the same thing two hours ago,” Erik points out.

Charles blinks at that, turning his head to gaze at Erik. “That can’t be true,” he says, but a single glance in Erik’s mind verifies it, a vivid confirmation of the steady passage of time and Erik’s growing impatience. 

“I need to—“

Erik cuts him off. “You _need_ to sleep,” he says sharply. “You’re no good to anyone if you overexert yourself.” Though his voice is laced with annoyance, it can’t quite drown out either his worry or the brightly burning affection. “I hope you don’t imagine I’d be willing to nurse you through another episode.”

Said episode was a special circumstance, Charles wants to protest. He’d collapsed, yes, been useless for the better part of a week, but—that was just after they had lost Hank. It was perfectly natural for Charles to respond the way he did, by taking over as much of Hank’s work as he could, doing double duties right up until the point it all caught up with him. It’s unlikely to happen again. He’s more rational now, and stronger too.

He doesn’t say any of this, however. Because it’s true that Erik _was_ the one to nurse him through it, constantly by his side and caring for him the entire time Charles was ill. And when Charles was well again, he’d looked at Charles for quite a long time, and Charles had heard the thought clear as anything in his head: _After everything else, I can’t lose you as well. Not again._

It had aroused some soft part of Charles, just like it always did, always had, those tender and romantic declarations Erik seemed to clutch so tightly inside and could never quite allow to leave his mouth. 

Except Erik had shocked him then, once more rewriting everything Charles thought he knew, even after all these years, because a second later Erik said the same thing aloud, after all.

“Who would have expected you to become such a nag in your old age,” Charles says finally, and Erik takes it as the capitulation it is. 

A half hour later, in bed (a proper bed, for this once, a lucky find in this particular safehouse; Storm and Logan had both insisted it be reserved for Charles’s use, despite his protests), Erik curls himself up against Charles’s back, one arm wrapped around his chest, chin tucked in against his shoulder. They slept together this way back at the beginning, too. A thousand years ago. It might as well have been another life.

“How many today,” Erik asks softly. There’s a nakedness to his voice, a quiet emotion Charles knows few people have ever heard.

How many stars dimmed in the sky today. How many wonders gone from a world that has so few wonders left. How many flames extinguished for good. How many of their people gone that they couldn’t save.

Charles closes his eyes. “Too many.” _Always too many._

Erik makes a noise, something like a sigh or perhaps just an acknowledgment, and he presses a kiss to Charles’s neck.

Charles allows the exhaustion to overtake him, drifting down into another night together, borrowed against the future and the war it holds.


End file.
